Home Events Using Bayesian Stabilization to Reconcile Accuracy and Equity in School Accountability

Using Bayesian Stabilization to Reconcile Accuracy and Equity in School Accountability

Mid-Atlantic | September 29, 2023

Time: 4:30-6:00 pm EDT

Location: Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness (SREE) Conference, Arlington, Virginia

Description: The Every Student Succeeds Act requires states to report each school’s performance for individual subgroups of students, aiming to draw attention to underserved groups that may need more support. This focus on equity has become even more urgent in the wake of a pandemic that disproportionately harmed students who were already disadvantaged. As demonstrated in a REL Mid-Atlantic report using data provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bayesian stabilization offers a way for more students to be included in subgroup accountability measures—consistent with a commitment to equity—and reduces the risks of misidentifying schools for improvement.

REL Mid-Atlantic will present this report at the 2023 Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness Conference and discuss how stabilizing performance measurements through partial pooling can enhance both accuracy—by improving the statistical reliability of the estimates—and inclusivity—by making it possible to produce useful measures of performance for small groups of students that might otherwise be ignored. More accurate and inclusive performance measures lay the foundation for improved understanding of variation in subgroup performance, a prerequisite for advancing equity.